Lucid Motors details the remaining variants of its Air sedan lineup with the online debut of the Pure and the Touring. The upstart battery-electric-vehicle maker also gives the best view yet of its forthcoming second model, the Gravity CUV, which will be assembled at Lucid’s Casa Grande, AZ, plant in 2024.
The Pure is the entry point for the Air lineup and will have the most affordable price yet of all grades of the BEV – $87,400, when it goes on sale around January. The vehicle comes in rear- and all-wheel drive configurations, but the dual-motor AWD Pure will launch production in December for the U.S. and Canada, ahead of the single-motor RWD model coming in 2023.
“It’s a remarkable vehicle that will introduce Lucid to an even wider audience,” says Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson of the Air Pure, in comments delivered in a prerecorded video made available to media yesterday.
The Air Pure’s range is an EPA-estimated 410 miles (660 km), compared with the 516-mile (830-km) range of the 819-hp Grand Touring, a Wards 10 Best Engines & Propulsion Systems winner for 2022, and the 446-mile (718-km) range of the 1,050-hp Air Grand Touring Performance grade.
The Pure as well as the Air Touring grade, also revealed, both use a slightly smaller battery pack than the Grand Touring and Grand Touring Performance, with 18 modules vs. 22 modules in the latter two grades’ extended-range packs. Rawlinson says the Pure can add up to 200 miles (322 km) of range in 15 minutes when connected to a 350-kW DC fast charger.
Lucid’s Dream Drive advanced driver-assist technology is standard on the Pure, which also can be upgraded to Dream Drive Pro with its 32 sensors, including short- and long-range radars, high-resolution lidar and ultrasonic sensors to enable surround-view monitor and highway assist features.
Derek Jenkins, Lucid senior vice president for design and brand, says with the Pure, “dozens of small improvements” reduce the Air’s coefficient of drag to 0.197 Cd, down from 0.21 in the current model.
The BEV sedan’s new Touring grade, which just entered production, offers “an extraordinary fusion of performance, range and interior ergonomics, which is unsurpassed by any other competitor,” says Rawlinson, noting the car makes 620 hp in its dual-motor, AWD configuration. The range is an EPA-estimated 425 miles (684 km), which Rawlinson boasts is “well above anything else in its class.”
Rawlinson and Jenkins note the increase in rear passenger volume in the Pure and Touring, due to the smaller battery-pack size. Jenkins says both the Pure and Touring will come standard with aluminum roofs, not the glass roofs of the Grand Touring and Grand Touring Performance, as well as the Dream Edition with which Lucid launched the Air lineup in fall 2021. However, a glass roof is optional on the Touring.
Sustainable materials are a calling card of the Air and the new grades continue that approach, with the Pure’s seats wearing a fabric, Dune, made of 100% recycled material and the Touring receiving Napa full-grain leather sourced from Lucid’s “carbon-neutral leather partners,” says Jenkins.
“We juxtapose the premium leather with recycled textiles and synthetics (and) whenever possible we source sustainable materials and employ manufacturing practices to further reduce the environmental impact of our vehicles,” he says.
The Pure has “leather alternative” and fabrics on interior trim pieces, while the Touring, priced at $107,400 to start, uses carbon oak wood trim, which Jenkins says is sustainably harvested and has an open-pore finish to mimic midcentury modern wood furniture.
For the Air, Rawlinson notes the automaker recently has released an over-the-air upgrade for its user experience software, UX 2.0, which he says results in improved system response with reduced startup time, as well as updated maps and navigation. Screen layout is updated to place the most-used controls closer to the driver, and new on the ADAS front is highway assist with active lane centering and adaptive cruise control.
For its understated, eco-friendly luxury and good UX, the Lucid Air Dream Edition was a 2022 Wards 10 Best Interiors & UX winner.
The video released for the Pure and Touring was recorded at Lucid’s Casa Grande vehicle assembly plant, which Rawlinson announces has completed its phase two expansion to accommodate builds of the BEV maker’s second model, the Gravity. Rawlinson calls it an SUV but it is not a body-on-frame vehicle, instead built on the same platform as the Air sedan.
The additional space adds 2.85 million sq.-ft. (232,258 sq.-m) to the Arizona plant, dubbed AMP-1, where production of the Gravity will commence in 2024. Reservations for the CUV begin in early 2023.
Lucid officials say a little about the Gravity, which Jenkins calls a “true next-generation luxury sport utility vehicle." It is to have supercar-like performance, next-generation "Glass Cockpit" high-resolution displays, range better than competitors but on par with the Air and seat five, six or seven passengers, coming in 2- or 3-row layouts. In a computer-generated 3-row Gravity pictured in a video, the first two rows have bucket seats and the third row is a bench. Also as seen in the video, the Gravity has lower skirting on the front fascia that protrudes outward from the grille and the rear of the CUV has a roof overhanging the rear glass. An overhead view of the Gravity, with Lucid's signature linear headlight (with a dozen micro lens array), is pictured below. Final design and vehicle specs for the CUV are being determined, Lucid says.
Lucid also uses the Pure and Touring launch video to announce more about the Sapphire grade of the car, introduced during August’s annual Monterey Car Week in northern California. The three-motor variant, with a new twin rear-drive unit with torque vectoring, makes more than 1,200 hp, exceeding any competitor, Rawlinson says. (Most notably, the Air Sapphire exceeds the 1,050-hp Tesla Model S Plaid.) The track-focused vehicle, with a 0-60 mph (97 km/h) time of 1.89 seconds, standard ceramic carbon brakes and heavily bolstered black leather and blue Alcantara seats, goes on sale in the U.S. and Canada in the first half of 2023.
